


Security

by bibliomaniac



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, barry is a small spaces gremlin i guess, it's almost crack-ish but not really?, lol i have no idea what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 23:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14658429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: Barry has always loved small spaces, but this time he might have taken that a bit too far.(aka the one where Taako explains to Lup that Barry has gotten himself sucked up into an umbrella because it's small in there and he's into that)





	Security

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Boomjob](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomjob/gifts).



> this is a birthday gift for boom! after some harassment she finally gave me something to write, so the first part above the break is hers and then i continued it in...probably the worst way possible lol (inspired by real life baby biblio, who hung out under sinks and in linen closets on a routine basis). anyway check out [boom's work](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomjob/pseuds/Boomjob) because she's great and wonderful and it is her Birthday

“So explain this again slowly Taako, because I want you to _really take this in._ ” 

“I really don’t see the problem here!”

“TAAKO.” Lup looked like her glare could cut steel. “I need you to understand the gravity of this situation!” She paused, taking a deep breath. “WHERE THE FUCK IS BARRY.”

It wasn’t a question, she knew exactly where he was, he’d explained it three times already. 

“I TOLD YOU ALREADY.”

“BUT DO YOU UNDERSTAND—”

“YES I GET IT!” 

“YOU SEE HOW RIDICULOUS-”

“IT’S NOT RIDICULOUS!”

“THAT MY _HUSBAND-”_

_“I GET IT, HE’S IN THE UMBRELLA, GOD!”_

Lup pinched the bridge of her nose, emotions held together like a cracking wine glass close to overflowing. She could use some of that fucking wine right about now. 

“Start,” she exhaled, “From the beginning.”

 

* * *

 

 

It is not precisely the beginning, but it is a fact both Taako and Lup know anyway: Barry likes small, enclosed spaces. This had been clear more or less from the start of the mission. They were only several days into their first cycle when Taako had been getting some things out of the ship’s linen closet and found Barry, wide-eyed and apologetic, hiding at the back of one of the shelves, behind several pillows.

Taako had stared at him appraisingly, then moved to put one of the pillows back.

“Wait,” Barry had said, a bit strangled, “I can explain.”

“I don’t need an explanation,” Taako had said coolly, stuffing another pillow back. “We all got our fetishes.” 

“No! Gods, no, Taako--I just--” He hides his face with one hand. “I like small spaces. They make me feel--” 

Taako had stuffed the final pillow back, the one that went over Barry’s face, because he wasn’t really interested in having a feelings talk with pillowboy. “Horny. I get it.”

A muffled sound, something like a dying wildebeest, comes from behind the pillow, and Taako allows himself a small triumphant smile before exiting the closet. 

Lup passes by him in the hallway, with a towel on her torso but clearly without one for her hair, and Taako says sweetly, “There are towels in the closet if you need them. Pillows, too.” 

From far behind, he hears a shriek and the dying wildebeest sound again, and it is then that he smiles for real.

That was the first time they learned about it, but it wouldn’t be the last time he reinforced the concept. Over the many cycles, they found Barry wedged into small spaces all over the ship, sometimes awake and wincing at the discovery, and sometimes just sleeping with a smile on his face. Taako hadn’t let him finish the one time, but years later, when they were all more comfortable with each other, Barry had finally been able to say what he meant the whole time: small spaces made him feel secure and comfortable, something to hold onto when everything else was falling apart around him.

(Taako had nodded sagely. “So still horny, but just emotionally.”

Barry had sputtered and adjusted his glasses nervously from his place in a cabinet. “That’s not how that works, Taako, I’m _pretty_ sure.” 

“Barry, we’re friends. If you want to make some big confession about how you get off on, like, bein’ _stable_ or some shit, I’m gonna support you one hundred percent, ‘cause that’s how Taako do.”

Barry had blinked owlishly at him. “By your questionable logic, wouldn’t that get me quote-unquote ‘horny’ too?”

Taako had grinned, something sharp and vicious. “Maybe that’s also how Taako do.”

And Barry had gone even more red as Taako shut the cabinet door, singing, “Jay-kay. I’ll leave the _doing_ to Lup.” 

Barry didn’t need to know that Taako kept a tally somewhere in his room of the times he had gotten Barry to make the wildebeest noise. He did, though, and he had a bit of a skip in his step as he left Barry to expire in peace, traipsing off to his bedroom to update the tally.)

Anyway, all of this to say: it really shouldn’t have been surprising to either of them that the speculative gleam in Barry’s eyes when Lup recounted her experience in the umbrella, or more specifically its _dimensions,_ wasn’t exactly hypothetical. Taako hadn’t been privy to the weeks of Barry doing research late into the night, running tests and biting his lip as he makes minute adjustments to his spellwork, but he had been privy to Barry putting both his hands on his shoulders with uncomfortable sincerity and saying, “Taako, beat me.”

Taako had stared at him, then laughed uncomfortably. “Look, uh, I know there are a few things I’m obligated to help you out with since you’re my brother-in-law and shit, but don’t you have, like, an entire _wife_ to make wacky sex requests to—”

Barry’s eyebrows had creased as he frowned. “Ew, gross. No. Like, at—cards or something. Uh, in a battle of wits. I don’t care, some kind of defeat. Completely nonsexual, _obviously._ ” 

Taako had stared at him a while longer, still confused and a little bit worried, then shrugged. “Well, hey, if you want to suffer crushing defeat at Fantasy Uno at the hands of yours truly, who am I to deny you?”

Barry had beamed in a way that was really too happy and should have set off warning bells for Taako way earlier, and Taako had transmuted some coasters into Fantasy Uno cards (Lup wouldn’t mind; in fact, she’d probably approve, much more useful), and they had started to play. 

Taako cheats, is another thing everybody involved here has known for a long time. He’s very good at cards, but he also cheats mercilessly, less because he has to and more because he enjoys seeing how blatant he can be about it before somebody calls him out. Barry doesn’t call him out at all, which should be another flag, but Taako is too involved in transmuting all of his cards into Draw Fours to notice.

Just before Taako puts down his final card, Barry blurts out, “So, uh—something weird is about to happen, and I just wanna make sure you—uh, and Lup, especially Lup—know that…uh. I’m fine, and I can get out whenever.”

“Huh?” Taako asks, looking up, and as he sets down his final card, the innocuous-looking jeans-patterned umbrella that he hadn’t even noticed was sitting next to the chair inverts itself and sucks Barry into it.

So. One minor anxiety attack and a Stone of Far Speech call later, Taako and Lup are here, gazing dolefully at the umbrella.

“He did say he could get out whenever,” Taako mumbles. 

Lup gives him a withering glare. “Uh-huh.”

“Come on, have some trust in your extreme genius husband, or whatever,” he says, examining his nails with a careful and clearly artificial air of indifference.

Lup exhales, looking away for a moment. “I do. I do trust him. Just…”

Taako slings his arm around her shoulders with a matching exhale. “Yeah, I get it. Trauma’s a bitch.”

“You know it.”

It is to that statement that the umbrella inverts again and spits Barry out. His hair is a bit ruffled, but he looks absolutely delighted as he babbles, “—totally works, I knew that adding some recursive logic would do the trick—I mean, obviously needs some more testing—” He stops talking as he sees two very pissed-off looking siblings. “Um.”

“Barry, holy fuck,” Lup says fervently as she runs forward to hug him.

“I said I would be fine,” Barry says, bemusedly returning the deep hug.

“Barry, you fucker, she was trapped in an umbrella for ten years,” Taako says, scowling at him. “I don’t care how you get your claustrophilic rocks off or whatever, but could you maybe consider not doing it in a way that evokes the way my sister was trapped?”

Barry blinks again. “I mean—claustrophilic? Taako, I didn’t do this so I could be in a small space. I mean, that was nice and all, but.” He pauses, the crease between his eyebrows deepening again. “I wanted Lup to be able to use the Umbra Staff again without worrying about getting trapped again if she were ever defeated. I’ve been tinkering around with a modification to the enchantment that allows escape coded to some magical signatures—oof.”

Lup kisses him soundly, Taako turning to the side and making a face. 

“Did you tell Lup I went in because it was small?” Barry asks when they’re done.

“I mean, I don’t think it was an entirely irrational assumption,” Taako mumbles.

“We have a ton of small spaces in the house. I don’t need a special umbrella version.”

“Yeah, well.” Taako kicks mulishly at the ground. “Whatever. See if I try and help next time you do something fucked up with limited explanation.”

“Aw, were you _worried_?”

“No! Fuck off!”

Lup pulls Taako into their hug, cooing, “Aw, it’s okay.” 

Taako makes an embarrassed groaning noise, and Barry brightens, pulling away from the embrace. “Ooh! Tally!”

As he runs off to his and Lup’s bedroom, Taako sputtering, “Wait, _what?_ ” and chasing after him, there is a fact Lup knows better than any other: there is nothing more secure than having her love and her heart by her side.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! my tumblr is at [anuninterestingperson](http://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com) and again check out [boom!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomjob/pseuds/Boomjob) her body of work i mean, not boom herself, that's fuckin creepy


End file.
